1.1.13

Leonid
Tishkov may change the way you see the moon forever. His ongoing project,
Private Moon, is a

mobile
installation and visual poem telling the story of a man who met the Moon and
stayed with her

forever.
That man, it seems, could be the wonderfully romantic Russian artist Leonid
Tishkov – literally

living
the performance of a lifetime as he travels the world with his own private
moon. We had a chat

with him
about lonely lunar love, and the power of experiential poetry to unite and
transform.

What are you working on at the moment?

I just
finished my trip of Private Moon in Republic of China Taiwan. Over a month the
moon visited the

strangest
and most unexpected places of Kaohsiung and its surroundings. Last week was the
opening of

an
exhibition Private Moon in Taiwan at Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts. There, in
the park of the

museum,
I built two installations: The Full Moon and The Moon in the Rest at the
Childrens Museum of

Art. Right
now I am building a new light installation for the museum in Siberia, Chukotka, at the most eastern and
northern edge of Russia. The exhibition will be called Fascinated Wanderer. The
poetic journey is main
theme of my art.

What
initially inspired the Private Moon series?

Ten
years ago I created this installation with the glowing moon at one of the festivals
of contemporary art. I wanted to make a picture of the reality of my favorite
artist – Belgian surrealist Rene Magritte. After that I brought the moon to the roof of my
studio on a skyscraper on the South of Moscow, where she shone to me
personally, and brightened my loneliness.

What does this series mean to you?

This is
not just a series – it is a performance of a lifetime! I have traveled Private
Moon for ten years and

each
time the moon reveals more space to me. The moon is a shining point that brings
people together

from
different countries, of different nationalities and cultures. And everyone who
gets in its orbit does

not
forget it ever. It gives fairytale and poetry in our prosy and mercantile
world.

Private
Moon is a project that you have carried on for a few years now, how has it
evolved over that

time?

I
initially did this project for myself, then it became public. The beginning was
in Linz, Austria, in 2009,

when I
offered to take anyone to the moon and make a personal light installation where
they live. For

more
than six months the Moon traveled from person to person. Everyone could feel
like an artist,

everyone
could experience a touch of poetry. Also – the object (moon) multiplied… Arctic
Moon consists of four
parts – two-meters would not fit to the plane that flies from Tromso to
Longirbyuen. Finally, in China
this year, it has grown to a full moon!

You have
described this work as a visual poem, and often accompany your images with
poetry too. Which
comes first for you, the words or the images?

Poetry
is born in the image. Before placing a Private moon in a place that I like, I
look at it for a very long

time.
Often this is the place that I see as the basis of the poem. In the first
pictures you see my country

house,
the bed on which I sleep and write poetry, I myself as a lonely poet and
philosopher – in the hat

and
cloak of my departed father. The world is beautiful around us, you just
illuminate it with the light of

poetry!
And for me, the light of the moon is the perfect poetry.

Some Private
Moon images are attributed to yourself and Boris Bendikov – tell us about
working with
other artists…

I
invited photographer Bendikov to shoot my installation and my choice was a good
one. He’s a great

photographer
who works for advertising, and he made twelve great photos. Particularly the
pictures on the roof of my studio, where I sit in front of the moon and talk to
her. After 2005 I worked with other

photographers
or shoot images myself, as the moon travels from New Zealand to the Arctic where
I can

not work
with only one photographer. My friend, artist Marcus Williams, did the perfect
shot in New

Zealand
– under volcano Rangitoto. The Paris series were shot by Tim Parchikov, a good
French-Russian

photographer.
In Taiwan’s story I worked with Chinese photographer Po-I Chen, while in
Austria the

moon was
generally shot by a lot of photographers.

How has
collaboration enriched your art practice?

I am
grateful to everyone who walked by my side as I’m carrying the moon around the
world. You see,

I’m an
artist and a poet, I have no other life but to dance of the dance of the moon
mad dervish. And if

someone
comes up beside me and will dance with me, and if the stars respond to this
dance – then a

miracle
happens – an art is born. And I hope that everyone who danced with me got a bit
of inspiration